56 ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 



In a civilised country he might have been roughly handled; 

 but here, where the bienstances are not so well understood, of 

 course nobody minded it. A French traveller told me he 

 had been a good deal in the British colonies, and had been 

 astonished to see how soon the people became Americanised. 

 He added, with delightful bonhomie, and as if he were sure it 

 would charm me, that they even began to talk through their 

 noses, just like you ! I was naturally ravished with this tes 

 timony to the assimilating power of democracy, and could 

 only reply that I hoped they would never adopt our demo 

 cratic patent-method of seeming to settle one s honest debts, 

 for they would find it paying through the nose in the long 

 run. I am a man of the New World, and do not know pre 

 cisely the present fashion of May Fair, but I have a kind of 

 feeling that if an American (mutato nomine, de te is always 

 frightfully possible) were to do this kind of thing under a 

 European roof, it would induce some disagreeable reflections 

 as to the ethical results of democracy. I read the other day 

 in print the remark of a British tourist who had eaten large 

 quantities of our salt, such as it is (I grant it has not the 

 European savour), that the Americans were hospitable, no 

 doubt, but that it was partly because they longed for foreign 

 visitors to relieve the tedium of their dead-level existence, 

 and partly from ostentation. What shall we do ? Shall we 

 close our doors? Not I, for one, if I should so have for 

 feited the friendship of L. S., most lovable of men. He 

 somehow seems to find us human at least, and so did Clough, 

 whose poetry will one of these days, perhaps, be found to 

 have been the best utterance in verse of this generation. 

 And T. H., the mere grasp of whose manly hand carries with 

 it the pledge of frankness and friendship, of an abiding sim 

 plicity of nature as affecting as it is rare ! 



The fine old Tory aversion of former times was not hard 

 to bear. There was something even refreshing in it, as in a 

 north-easter to a hardy temperament. When a British parson, 

 travelling in Newfoundland while the slash of our separation* 

 was still raw, after prophesying a glorious future for an island 

 that continued to dry its fish under the aegis of Saint George, 



of the Broken Bubble. Mr. Lincoln persisted in calling him Mr. Partington. 

 Surely the refinement of good-breeding could go no further. Giving the young 

 man his real name (already notorious in the newspapers) would have made his 

 visit an insult. Had Henri IV. done this, it would have beer* famouSt 



